Tron Director Talks Black Hole

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Where religion, science and philosophy meet -- but probably not cheese.

By Scott Collura

IGN got the chance to talk to Tron Legacy director Joseph Kosinski recently -- more on that film later today -- and while we had him on the phone, we had to get a status update on his announced remake of The Black Hole.

First off, he says we can likely not expect to see a freaky version of heaven and hell as was depicted at the end of the original 1979 film.

"It's one of the trippier endings I've ever seen in a movie, especially for a big Disney movie to end like that one did," says Kosinski of that finale, which saw the heroes and antagonist of the story go through the titular space vortex -- only to wind up, seemingly, in heaven and hell, respectively. "But I think the notion of religion and science and philosophy… there's a lot of cool, interesting things to explore there. That's the cool thing about black holes. Even when you read about what's written about them from a science point of view, it almost sounds like science fiction or philosophy at some point because it's just so… it's nothing anyone has ever experienced firsthand. It's really a theoretical place and there's a lot of opportunity to do something really cool. But I think the approach would be a little more grounded than the original film was."

In hell, no one can hear you scream.

Whereas Tron Legacy is embracing the mythology of the original Disney film, existing as a standalone sequel to it, The Black Hole will go a different route.

"I think it will be going back and not necessarily building a sequel to the original movie, but really looking at just the core idea and rebuilding it, and for me, taking a little bit more of a hard science point of view," he explains. "My interest in black holes [is] what we know about them today as opposed to what we knew 30 years ago, and the amazing kind of phenomena that surround black holes in terms of distortion of space and time. I felt like there's a really interesting idea in there and an opportunity to do a really cool movie."

Kosinski stresses that right now they're just in the "outlining" stage of the film, "figuring out the idea." Scripter Travis Beacham (Clash of the Titans) is working on the concept while Kosinski finishes Tron Legacy. Of course, if Tron is a hit, it seems likely that the studio will want a sequel put on the fast-track. Could that conflict with Kosinski directing The Black Hole?

Heaven too.

"That would be a great problem to have," he laughs. "I can't imagine having that problem. I think if Tron Legacy works and people like it, I'm sure that Disney would [want a sequel]. That's one thing they're really good at, which is building out franchises. That would be a high-up decision at Disney as to which way to go. But for me at this point, I kind of get the position of just blue-sky concept[-ing] both movies."

But first things first…

"It's all very early stages," says the director. "For me, the focus right now is finishing Tron Legacy and making it great, and not really thinking about what's next at this point."